


The Care and Keeping of Bratty, Traumatized, Teenaged Monster Hunters.

by Goodluckdetective (scorpiontales)



Series: Supernatural/Batman fusions. [7]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 03:26:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4206165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiontales/pseuds/Goodluckdetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SPN! Fusion. Stephanie takes Damian as a partner after Dick’s death. They make it work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Care and Keeping of Bratty, Traumatized, Teenaged Monster Hunters.

**Author's Note:**

> The Supernatural episodes used as blueprints for this piece were "Party on, Garth" and "Pac-Man Fever"

      He was burning on the rack, claws digging into his shoulders, blood dripping down into the inferno below. Pieces of his skin had been flayed off and Damian could smell the ashes as the man screams echoed in his ears.

       The man on the rack twitched, a final death move, before falling limp. Damian struggled to make it to him from his cage, fighting the forces holding him back. He yelled, kicked, clawed for freedom, but nothing gave. The man, now little more than a piece of meat, smiled, his teeth stained with blood and opened his eyes. They were dark black, no irises in sight.

       “Hello, Little D. Miss me?”

           Damian woke up screaming. He was in a motel room, one will old west wallpaper. He had thrown off his sheets during his nightmare, blankets in a heap on the floor. There was a faint trace of light in the room coming from the television and he could make out the faint smell of popcorn.

       “Sorry, I have to stop chewing you out; Damian’s having a nightmare again. Be careful and call me.” That was Stephanie’s voice. He turned slightly to see Stephanie, clad in purple pajamas, placing her cell phone back in her bag. Her hair was up in a ponytail, blond bangs hanging over her eyes. She stood up, popcorn bowl in hand, walking over to Damian’s bed and sitting down on the corner.

       “Hey,” she said. Her voice was softer than usual, not so soft that it came off as worrying, but just enough to be soothing. “Vision or nightmare?”

       Damian didn’t answer, sinking down the pile of pillows he had propped himself against. Stephanie threw a piece of popcorn into her mouth. “Okay, nightmare. Wanna talk about it?”

       Damian’s glare was enough of a response. Stephanie shrugged, grabbing the popcorn bowl and walking back over to her bed, sitting down.

       “Well, if you want to, I’m going to be awake for a while longer. Caught some of “Tangled” on the television, and I’m a sucker for Disney.” She gestured to the television, where Rapunzel was singing her heart out a bar of thugs. She placed the popcorn on the bedside table between them. “You can join in, if you want. It’s a classic. Oh, and yes, you can steal my popcorn.”

       Damian didn’t answer, still glaring off in Stephanie’s direction. Stephanie didn’t look his way, leaning back on her bed, typing reports on her laptop as the movie played on. She paused every second or so to glance at Damian out of the corner of her eye. The teen had started to grab the popcorn, and Stephanie struggled to keep a smile off her face. A few minutes later, he finally spoke up.

       “That frying pan is a surprisingly effective weapon.”

       Stephanie didn’t bother to hide her grin this time. “Tell me about it. Thought about adding one to the truck, but I couldn’t find one that was pure silver.”

       “Too bad.”

       The two sat there for the rest of the movie, Stephanie sending out emails to fellow hunters, Damian commenting on the movie every few minutes or so. By the time the credits rolled, Damian was fast sleep, curled up next to the popcorn bowl in his bed. Stephanie sighed, getting up to throw one of the sheets over the kid.

       “I should have gone into babysitting.”

***

       To say that the last month had been difficult for Stephanie would be the understatement of perhaps the year.

       First Dick had died in a perfect plan to save his soul, that had gone perfectly wrong. Tim, her best friend, had gone sprinting off to god knows where. Demons had gotten more active than usual, so much that Stephanie had to pick up some of the slack that was falling through Alfred and Barbara’s fingers as the phones rang off the hook.

`       And then there was Damian. A fourteen year old brat of a kid who had just lost the person he had cared most about. A kid who was down a chaperone, an advisor, and a father figure.

       Stephanie wasn’t sure how she managed to take responsibility for the kid. She never outright stated it, and Dick had never asked her. But somehow, three days after Dick’s death, she found herself packing the car calling for Damian to “get his ass in gear.”

       The first thing she did when Damian had fallen asleep that first night was burn all of his I.D’s. There wasn’t going to be anymore soul selling on her watch.

***

       Stephanie had three basic rules when dealing with traumatized, grieving, teenaged demon hunters.

          1.      Keep all supplies that could potentially summon demon out of reach or somewhere they would never dare to touch. Her bag full of period supplies had been working nicely.  

          2.      All nightmares are to be combated by passive aggressive Disney movie watching.

          3.      Always take the weird cases.

     Okay, so the last one had been a rule for Stephanie in general but it was working nicely anyway

     “You have to be intoxicated to see this spirit?” Damian asked as Stephanie got a bottle of vodka out of her bag. She grabbed the nearest glass, a mug with a unicorn on it, and poured herself a decent amount.

     “Yep.” She brought the mug to her lips and took a sip. She paused, swallowed, and shuddered, coughing once. “Oh yeah, that should do the trick.”

     Damian sat down in the seat across from her and reached for the bottle. Stephanie grabbed it before he even got close.

     “Don’t even think about it, boy wonder. I’m going to be our eyes for the mission, so I need someone to watch my back. You are now my official back watcher.”

     Damian sulked. “Both of us should be able to see the spirit.” Stephanie poured herself another glass.

     “One of us should be able to walk straight so we can slay the thing. Plus, you are way too young to get wasted. You should be thanking me- you get to kill an alcohol spirit with a sword. I would have killed for that at your age.”

     Damian leaned in, raising an eyebrow. He looked less put out. “A sword?”

     “You betcha.”

     Six hours and one dead shojo later, they were back in the hotel room. Stephanie was curled over the toilet bowl, looking a frightening shade of green, while Damian was sitting outside the bathroom door, appraising the sword in his hands.  

     “Can I keep this? It’s a fine blade.”

     Stephanie looked up, her eyes red rimmed. “As long as you don’t try to kill Tim with it.”

     Damian clutched the blade closer. “I make no such promises.”

     Stephanie’s response was to groan in the toilet bowl.

***

     After a month on the road, things started to improve. The surge of monsters hadn’t gotten any smaller, but Barbara and Alfred had made a system to answer every call in record time. Damian’s nightmares, while still present, grew somewhat less frequent. And Tim popped his head out of the woodwork. Well, more like Tim got his ass hauled out of the woodwork by one Jason Peter Todd.

     “They found Drake,” Damian said, from the passenger’s seat in the car. They were driving up an old dirt road, the midmorning sun shining down through the dust and grime. “He’s fine, if not a little out of sorts. Todd is going to be traveling with him.”

     “Thank god,” Stephanie said, making a turn on the road. “Jason text you?”

     “I texted him actually. Wanted to inquire about his progress in finding Drake.” Stephanie had to hold back the urge to throw holy water at the kid. Damian seemed to notice her unease. “I’m not possessed, Brown. You’ve been worrying about Drake to a ridiculous extent. It’s distracting. I can’t afford to have you distracted.”

     Stephanie glanced at him. “Aw, you do care.”

     The bickering that resulted almost ran them off the road.

***

      Stephanie hated Djinns. Hated them with a fiery burning passion. They were the first beasts to almost kill her, one chaining her up for days and making her suffer terrible visions of torture and pain. She escaped, beat the bad guy, but the incident had almost killed her and left her wary of the creatures ever since.

     And now they had Damian. Three of them to be exact. Damian was tied up in a chair, his head limp. One of the beasts stood in front of him grinning, while two flanked his sides in the back corners. It was more than she had ever faced, and it had only taken one to bring her down last time.

     Then again, this wasn’t last time. There might have been more djinns but Stephanie had learned a lot of new tricks. She jumped down from the shadows, stabbing one of the flaking Djinns in the heart, before throwing a knife at the other flanking one. It hit right on target, both of the beasts falling to their knees at once.  The one in the middle turned, jumping at her with clawed hands, but she dodged, tripping the man to the floor before getting him in the heart as well.

     She ran to Damian, cutting the ropes free and slapping the kid’s face. She felt for his pulse, and upon finding it, reached into her bag for some dreamroot she kept lying around. After mixing the concoction in a record time of three minutes, she chugged the thing and lied down.

     When she opened her eyes she was standing on a cliff, looking down at the most horrific thing that she had ever seen. It was a pit of fire, that was the best way to describe it, and down below were chains holding screaming humans in place. Claws dug into their flesh, ripping, and she could smell the blood looking down.

     This was hell. Or at least, what Damian thought it was like. Stephanie didn’t think he was all that far off.

     “Get back!” She turned towards the sound of Damian voice. He was on the other edge of the cliff, backing away from a figure in jeans and a blue hoodie. Damian was near the very tip of the cliff, one step away from falling into the hole himself. The figure was leaving an impressive trail of blood behind him, one of his arms outstretched towards the kid. Stephanie broke out in a dead sprint, her feet clattering against the rock.

     “Damian!” The boy turned towards her, his eyes growing wider. She had never seen him that pale. She slid in between the boy and the figure, placing her hands on Damian’s shoulders. “Look this isn’t real, you’re asleep, it-“

     “Hello Stephanie.” She froze. The voice was distorted, broken and raw but she regonized it all the same. She looked over her shoulder, keeping her expression blank. Dick Grayson, dressed in the same blue hoodie he had died in was looking down at her, a large smile on his face. He front of his hoodie was torn, and she could see his guts and blood through the long jagged claw marks. Some of it dripped down onto the ground, hissing as it sunk into the dirt. His blue eyes were gone, replaced by black circles, lifeless and cruel.

     “You aren’t real,” She said, standing up, keeping Damian hidden behind her.

     “I might as well be.” He smiled and she flinched from the memory of Dick’s old mannerisms. He pointed towards Damian. “He killed me, you know.  Doomed me since he walked in. The demonic boy who dragged me into his parade of demons and monsters because he couldn’t keep his ass alive.”

“You were in that world long before Damian came along,” Stephanie said her voice steady. She kept her hands on her hips.

     “I was living before he came along. I gave that kid everything, and for what? He was supposed to save me, you see?” Dick took a step closer and Stephanie resumed a fighting post, ready to strike. “He’s the one who should be here, rotting away.”

     “That’s a load of bullshit,” Stephanie said. “Dick made his own choice. I know that. Dick knew that. Damian knows that. This isn’t his fault. It never was, right Damian?” Damian didn’t reply. “Damian?”

     She looked over her shoulder to find Damian shaking his head, biting his lower lip. He looked like a little kid really. Ignoring Dick, Stephanie knelt to the ground, placing her hand on Damian’s shoulder. “Damian, this isn’t your fault. You did the best you could.”

     Damian shook his head. “I failed.”

     She poked him in the chest and he looked up. “Listen,” Stephanie said. “Dick loved you, Damian. He was proud of you. You gave him everything you had, and he never regretted a moment of it. This isn’t your fault; it never was and it never will be. Tell him, won’t you.”

     “But-“ Stephanie shook her head.

     “No buts. You’re sounding like Tim. This is what your nightmares are about, aren’t they?” Damian nodded. “They won’t go away unless you stand up for yourself, kid. Now say it- this isn’t your fault.”

     “Oh really?” Dick said from behind them. Stephanie chucked a rock at his head and the demon flinched back, groaning. Damian took a step forward, pushing Stephanie behind him, and took a deep breath.

     “I’m sorry Grayson…but…this isn’t my fault.”

     The hellfire gave a final roar as dream world faded away.

     Stephanie woke up on the floor of the warehouse. Damian was in the chair still, now somewhat awake, his eyes puffy. She propped herself up, wrapping her arms around the boy. He stiffened ever so slightly.

     “This hug is non-refundable. You’re going to have to suck it up.”

     It took a couple of seconds, but soon enough, Damian hugged her back. He wasn’t sobbing, but she could feel his tears getting all over her shirt. She ran her fingers through his hair, making soothing noises.

     “It’s going to be alright,” she said. For the first time in weeks, she was sure she meant it.


End file.
